% Thomas Andrew Knight, Esq. 441 

 which grow in pots, to other pots of larger dimensions, ap- 

 pears to present a good deal of inconvenience : but I have 

 readily obviated this necessity, by means which I can con- 

 fidently recommend to the attention of gardeners. When 

 the plant, or Fruit-tree, is first placed in the pot, in which it 

 is long to remain, I mix with the compost some material, in 

 greater or less quantity, which is capable of ultimately af- 

 fording nutriment, but which will decompose slowly. In 

 some cases I have used with success slender half decayed 

 branches from my wood pile ; and ki others I have employed 

 sound chips, chiefly of Apple tree, mixed with mould, and 

 in sufficient quantity to occupy at least one-fourth of the 

 space afforded by the pot. As the roots of the plant increase, 

 the lifeless wood gradually decomposes, at the same time 

 giving food and space to the roots, which consequently do 

 not become injuriously compressed in the pot. I possess a 

 Nectarine tree which has grown nine years in the same pot, 

 and which vegetated more strongly in the present spring 

 than I can recollect, it previously to have done. Several 

 successive crops of fungi usually appear upon the surface of 

 the pots under the preceding circumstances ; but I have had 

 no reason to think these injurious. 



The trouble of conveying water to numerous pots, in hot 

 weather, would be very considerable ; but a simple mode of 

 applying the very ingenious contrivance of Mr. Loddiges, 

 by which water is dispersed, as in showers, upon the foliage 

 of his plants, and which has been described in the Society's 

 Transactions* would reduce this labour to the act of turning 

 a cock : and if it were desirable to diminish, or wholly take 



* See Vol. iii. page 1 4. 



